Interpretation of literary

.•fJ&jfErnest Hemingway 
In the old days Hortons Bay was a Jumbering town. No one who lived in 
it was out of sound of the big sawTTnTHe mill by the lake. Then one 
year there were no more logs to make lumber. The lumber schooners 
came into the bay and were loaded with the cut of the mill that stood 
stacked in the yard. All the piles of lumber were carried away. The big 
mill building had all its machinery that was out and hoisted on board one 
of the schooners by the men who had worked in the mill. The schooner 
moved out of the bay toward the open lake carrying the two great saws, 
the travelling carriage that hurled the logs against the revolving, circular 
saws and all the rollers, wheels, belts and iron piled on a hull-deep load 
of lumber. Its open hold covered with canvas and lashed tight, the sails 
of the schooner filled and it moved out into the open lake, carrying with 
it everything that had made the mill a mill and Hortons Bay a town. 
The one-story bunk houses, the eating-house, the company store, the 
mill offices, and the big mill itself stood deserted in the acres of sawdust 
that covered the swampy meadow by the shore of the bay. 
Ten years later there was nothing of the mill left except the broken white 
limestone of its foundations showing through the swampy second 
growth as Nick and Marjorie rowed along the shore. 
I 
They were trolling along the edge of the channel-bank where the bottom 
dropped off suddenly from sandy shallows to twelve feet of dark water. 
They were trolling on their way to the point to set night lines for 
rainbow trout. 
"There's our old ruin, Nick", Marjorie said. 
Nick, rowing, looked at the white stone in the green trees. 
"There it is", he said. 

---

172 
"Can you remember when it was a mill?" Marjorie asked. 
"I can just remember", Nick said. 
"It seems more like a castle", Marjorie said. 
Nick said nothing. They rowed on out of sight of the mill, following the 
shore line. Then Nick cut across the bay. 
"They aren't striking", he said. 
"No", Marjorie said. She was intent on the rod all the time they trolled, 
even when she talked. She loved to fish. She loved to fish with Nick. 
Close beside the boat a big trout broke the surface of the water. Nick 
pulled hard on one oar so the boat would turn and the bait spinning far 
behind would pass where the trout was feeding. As the trout's back came 
up out of the water the minnows jumped wildly. They sprinkled the 
surface like a handful of shot thrown into the water. Another trout broke 
water, feeding on the other side of the boat. 
"They're feeding", Marjorie said. 
"But they won't strike", Nick said. 
He rowed the boat around to roll past both the feeding fish, then headed 
it for the point. Marjorie did not reel in until the boat touched the shore. 
They pulled the boat up the beach and Nick lifted out a pail of live 
perch. The perch swam in the water in the pail. Nick caught three of 
them with his hands and cut their heads off and skinned them while 
Marjorie chased with her hands in the bucket, finally caught, a perch, cut 
its head off and skinned it. Nick looked at her fish, 
"You don't want to take the ventral fin out", he said. "It'll be all right for 
bait but it's better with the ventral fin in". 
He hooked each of the skinned perch through the tail. There were two 
hooks attached to a leader on each rod. Then Marjorie rowed Ihe boat 
out over the channel-bank, holding the line in her teeth, and looking 
toward Nick, who stood on the shore holding the rod and letting the line 
run out from the reel. 
"That's about right", he called. 
"Should 1 let it drop?" Marjorie called back, holding the line in her 
hand. 
"Sure. Let it go", Marjorie dropped the line overboard and watched the 
baits go down through the water. 
She came in with the boat and ran the second line out the same way. 
Each time Nick set a heavy slab of driftwood across the butt of the rod 
to hold it solid and propped it up at an angle with a 
148 

---

173 
small slab. He reeled in the slack line so the line ran taut out to where 
the bait rested on the sandy floor of the channel and set click on the reel. 
When a trout, feeding on the bottom, took the bait it would run with it, 
taking line out of the reel in a rush and making ;,
;
,. uvl -iii^ \\kli iik' dick 
on. 
Marjorie rowed up the point a little way so she would not disturb the 
line. She pulled hard on the cars and the boat went way up the beach. 
Little waves came in with it. Marjorie stepped out of the boat and Nick 
pulled the boat high up the beach. 
"What's the matter, Nick?" Marjorie asked. "I don't know", Nick said, 
getting wood for 3 fire. They made a fire with driftwood. Marjorie went 
to the boat and brought a blanket. The evening breeze blew the smoke 
toward the point, so Marjorie spread the blanket out between the fire and 
the lake. 
Marjorie sat on the blanket with her back to the fire and waited for Nick. 
He came over and sat down beside her oil the blanket. In back of them 
was the elosc second-growth timber of the point and in front was the bay 
with mouth of Mortons Greek. It was not quite dark. The firelight went 
as far as the water. They could both see the two steel rods at an angle 
over the dark water. The fire glinted, on the reels. 
Marjorie unpacked the basket of supper. 
"I don't feel like eating", said Nick. 
"Come on and eat, Nick". 
"Ail right". 
They ate without talking, and watched the two rods and the firelight in 
the water. 
"There's going to be a moon tonight", said Nick. He looked across the 
bay to the hills that were beginning to sharpen against the sky. Beyond 
the hills he knew the moon was coming up. 
"I know it", Marjorie said happily. 
"You know everything", Nick said. 
"Oh, Nick, please cut it out! Please, please don't be that way!" 
"I can't help it", Nick said. "You know everything. That's the trouble. 
You know you do". 
Marjorie did not say anything. 
"I've taught you everything. You know you do. What don't you know, 
anyway?" 
"Oh, shut up", Marjoric said. "There comes the moon". 

---

174 
They sat on the blanket without touching each other and watched the 
moon rise. 
"You don't have to talk silly", Marjorie said. "What's really the matter?" 
"I don't know". 
"Of course you know". 
"No, I don't". 
"Go on and say it". 
Nick looked on at the moon, coming up over the hills. 
"It isn't fun any more". 
He was afraid to look at Marjorie. Then he looked at her. She sat there 
with her back toward him. He looked at her back. "It isn't fun any more. 
Not any of it". 
She didn't say anything. He went on. "I feel as though everything was 
gone to hell inside of me. I don't know. Marge. I don't know what to 
say". 
He looked on at her back. 
"Isn't love any fun?" Marjorie said. 
"No", Nick said. Marjoric stood up. Nick sat there, his head in his hands. 
"I'm going to take the boat", Marjorie called to him. "You can walk back 
around the point". 
"All right", Nick said. "I'll push the boat off for you". 
''You don't need to", she said. She was afloat in the boat on the water the 
moolight on it. Nick went back and lay down with his face in the blanket 
by the fire. He could hear Marjorie rowing on the water. 
He lay there for a long time. He lay there while he heard Bill come into 
the clearing walking around through the woods. He felt Bill corning up 
to the fire. Bill didn't touch him, cither. 
"Did she go all right?" Bill said. 
"Yes", Nick said, lying, his face on the blanket. 
"Have a scene?" 
"No, there wasn't any scene". 
"How do you feel?" 
"Oh, go away, Bill! Go away for a while". 
Bill selected a sandwich from the lunch basket and walked over to have 
a look at the rods. 
Tasks 
1) Say a few words about the author of the story. 
2) Point out the compositional parts: the exposition, the story, 
the climax, the denouement. Give a title to each part. 

---

175 
3) Reproduce the exposition to the story. Comment on the 
emotional atmosphere it conveys. Point out the means creating the -
atmosphere. 
4) Discuss the plot of the story according to the following: 
a) What does the author begin his story with? 
b) What role does the description of a lumbering town and a 
^ruined mill play in the story? 
c) What docs the girl associate the ruined mill with. How does 
it characterize her and her mood? 
d) Why was the author so particular in describing the episode 
•of fishing? What effect is created by it? 
5) Speak about the author's attitude to the personages of the 
story. How is it revealed: in the author's evaluation or, impersonally, 
through a depiction of the characters' actions and conversation. 
150 
6) Reproduce the conversation between Nick and Marjorie. 
What does the repetition of the word "look" imply? 
7) Dwell on the end of the story that gives the final touch to 
the disclosing of personages' characters and the conceptual information. 
8) Comment on the title of the story. What does the pronoun 
"something imply?"